


glass hearts and knives

by marstundra



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AGH, Coran is a shoulder to cry on, F/M, Give lance love 2k17, Hurt Lance (Voltron), I still dont know how to do this, M/M, Self Harm, Slow Burn, Sorry I got bored and really angsty, Suicidal Thoughts, Superpowers, adding tags as I go, bipolar depression!Lance, claustrophobic!Lance, druid!lotor, i kinda had 12 ideas for fics and decided to roll them all into one, its a superpower ;), lance forever has blue nails, poor confidence, rough editing, save lance from my devil typing fingers, sorry if it's jumbled and such, sorry if this is offensive to anyone, sort of graphic self harm, this is going to be a
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marstundra/pseuds/marstundra
Summary: Lance supposed he always knew he was the least valuable on his team. He tried to wedge himself a spot of importance, boasting all the time about skills he barely possessed. He felt like he was in a constant race with everyone; trying to catch up with the level of skill they all had.





	1. depression

Allura called the paladins in for training after lunch. Lance wasn’t particularly excited for it, neither was anyone, really, but they all knew it was necessary. Everyone went into the training room after changing into the paladin armor, and they awaited further instruction from Shiro or Allura, who were talking to each other at the moment. 

_They seemed to always be together lately,_ Lance noted absentmindedly.

She elected for the paladins to fight each other, because there would be a broader range of fighting styles. Everyone had a chance to spar with one another. Lance was keeping up with Pidge for a while, until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keith and Hunk’s sparring battle. 

Lance saw Keith and Hunk sparring through the transparent blue protective shield separating both matches. The wall absorbed the plasma bullets from Hunk and Lance’s guns, making sure either match wasn’t interrupted by stray shots. 

Keith was swiftly dodging plasma cannon shots from Hunk’s bayard. He swung his own sword bayard and effectively knocked Hunk’s cannon from his hands. Keith angled his bayard at Hunk, who had his hands up in defeat. 

Lance had been distracted from watching the others, and Pidge took full advantage of this by kicking Lance’s left foot off balance. Lance fell to his knees, and when he turned back to his own sparring match with Pidge, they were already behind him, taking his arm with their hand and pushing it into a back arm lock position. 

He shouted in protest, “Pidge!” he tried to wriggle free, but it made the pain worse, “Ah! It hurts! Let go of me!”

Pidge relents, and Lance rises to his feet; rubbing his shoulder where Pidge had pulled it. Pidge was laughing lightheartedly, and at this point, Hunk and Keith were walking over to them now. 

Pidge put their hands on their hips, “Gosh, Lance, if you weren’t so busy giving love eyes to Keith, you would’ve stood a chance!”

Lance was embarrassed, because not only did Pidge point out how Lance lost, but they noticed he was looking at Keith! Lance tried to avoid Keith’s gaze, he did _not_ want to see what he thought of _that_ remark.

“I was _not_ giving love eyes to Keith! I was looking over to my buddy, Hunk! I had to make sure Keith wouldn’t pull any low blows on my bro, ya know? Gotta keep my allies safe!” 

“Thanks bro,” Hunk says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Shiro, who was off on the sidelines, came over to them now.

“Lance, while you _are_ right, your allies safety is important,” he pauses, “you need to have trust that they will be alright long enough for you to defend _yourself_ first. You need to not get distracted, and focus on what’s _right in front of you.”_

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Lance trails off, pretending not to care. He was thinking about how this was the nth time Shiro has told him to get his shit together this week, but in a nice and constructive way. Lance wished someone would just be blunt with him, and tell him off for not being good, instead of sugarcoating everything with optimistic quotes. 

Lance’s gaze drifts to Keith, who has his arms crossed, but is looking at Lance with a sympathetic stare. Keith had been in the same position before; getting told off by Shiro

They both dart their eyes away at the same time, Lance’s cheeks turning a shade of pink.

Before Lance can think of his stupid crush on the mullet, he thinks;

_Why does Keith always have to be so good at everything? Why does he have look at me with his stupid pitying glare?_

The glare Keith gives Lance makes him feel worse. But he doesn’t have to think too long before Shiro speaks again.

“Let’s go again, switch partners; Pidge and Keith, then Lance go with Hunk.”

Keith and Pidge move to an empty space in the training room. 

Hunk smiles at Lance warmly, excited to hang out with his best friend.

“Don’t sweat it, Lance,” Hunk places a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “You’re doing fine, I’m sure you’ll beat me in a fair fight.”

Both Lance and Hunk activate their bayards, and make some distance between themselves. 

Lance was only defending against Hunk, not caring to make any offensive moves on him. He had been lost in his own thoughts, and didn’t care to free himself of them until Hunk won the match, and maybe, not even then. Lance could sulk back to his room, and sleep until the next planet needs help. 

The rest of the sparring match blurs in Lance’s mind. He can’t focus on the match because he’s thinking about how he isn’t getting any better at this. Everyone on the team has something they excel at, something they like doing that contributes to the team. However, Lance doesn’t have anything he’s passionate about that can help the team in any way. 

All of his friends are advancing, but Lance feels like his isn’t. These drills are working with helping the paladins get better with their strategy, reaction-time, and quick thinking, and Lance just isn’t doing well. 

Lately, Lance has been losing all of his motivation. 

His family used to keep him going, but now, without his family, or even just his mom’s words of encouragement, he can’t function. He misses his siblings, his parents, everyone back on Earth. Just imagining what his mom is going through-not knowing where Lance is- hurts him. And all of his brothers and sisters, the younger and the older, he can’t imagine how worried they must be. 

Not only that, but then there were also the _special_ missions, where a specific paladin was chosen because they would be more helpful than another paladin. Everyone had gone on one, except for Lance. He supposed he had the average lion, and so he was the Average pilot for her. 

Lance regrets thinking of Blue as average; he knew she was anything but average, but _he_ was the average pilot. There wasn’t anything special about Lance. He had convinced himself of that.

When he sees Hunk steady his gun again to shoot, something in Lance’s mind tells him to halt, and stay put to await the outcome. He wondered what the energy cannon felt like when you were hit by it. Hunk had taken out so many galra with it in the past; so they know what it felt like, right?

A large concentrated force impacts in Lance’s chest and right shoulder. He's stunned, and blown off his feet, and feels the air carry him backwards from the impact. Lance is disoriented, and can’t figure out which direction he needs to plant his body so he can land upright. He gives up trying, and forcibly hits the ground sideways, making impact on his bad shoulder first. 

At this point, Lance is so unmotivated. He elects not to acknowledge the pain his shoulder and hip is in, and thus not to get up. He can tell his shoulder dislocated from hitting the ground, and he doesn’t want to bother with it. 

“Lance!” Hunk shouts, deactivating his bayard and running to his friend. The heavy footsteps become louder, and more footsteps accompany Hunk’s. 

He closes his eyes, pretending to be passed out. Maybe, if he pretended long enough, it would happen, and he wouldn’t have to deal with everyone. He deeply wanted to not be here right now. However if that did happen, he was sure he would be put in a healing pod, and Lance _hated_ those.

“Lance,” It was Shiro’s voice. _Oh boy._ “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

“What happened?” Keith asks urgently.

Hunk stutters, “I- I- dunno man, he seemed really out of it, so I tried to go easy on him, but he also didn’t respond to me when I was trying to talk to him while we were sparring. As I shot off again, he just stopped, stood in place. It was like he wanted it.”

When someone lifts him upright, the pain in his shoulder _cannot_ be ignored anymore; but it’s unbearable, so Lance gets what he wishes, and blacks out. 

…

Lance was no stranger to the cryopods; after the castle had been haunted, Lance never wanted to see a cryopod again. He hated being trapped inside of one, and it gave him nightmares for weeks. 

So waking up in one of them, _yet again,_ was not welcome. Of course the protective shield sank to the floor, and he could walk out; but the tired chills he had did not comfort him. 

He opens his eyes and blurrily sees the whole crew. Shiro and Allura are talking farther away than anyone else, while Pidge and Hunk are playing what appears to be rock paper scissors. Keith was holding his arms and looking out of place, but he had been the one to make eye contact with Lance first.

Keith’s eyes light up with something Lance has never seen from the short tempered boy before; relief. And that relief was directed towards Lance? Keith opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something, when Hunk and Pidge looked over and wasted no time in tackling Lance in a bear hug. Lance smiles warmly; Hunk’s hugs have been known to bring him up when he was feeling down. 

“We thought you got a concussion or something as well as the arm issue, and so Coran put you in on of the pods. Good to see you’re alright, dude,” Hunk can easily wrap his arms around Lance. 

“Good to _be_ alright,” Lance says, with a newfound energy. His body no longer aches, and his arm is back in place. He just wants to get out of the tight bodysuit that he woke up in. Shiro and Allura see that Lance has woken, and they calmly stride over.

The black paladin wastes no time, “What happened back there, Lance?”

Lance is reminded of his bad mood from before, and his smile falls. 

“I don’t know,” he shrinks back, “I lost concentration, I guess.”

Shiro looks at Lance with a pitying glare, similar to the one Keith had given him not too long ago. 

“Lance,” Shiro says with authority, “You’ve been giving me that excuse for the past weeks. What’s going on with you?”

Lance doesn’t have the heart to tell Shiro about his insecurities. He doesn’t want to seem more weak than he already is. So he stays quiet. 

“You know you can always talk to us,” Hunk looks at Lance with sincerity. Keith and Pidge nod in agreement on the sidelines. Hunk’s lips turn upward in a smile, trying to tell Lance _it’s okay, we’re all here for you._

Usually, Hunk’s smiles bring Lance out of any negative mood he’s in, but right now, it’s the thing that makes Lance snap. Even Lance is surprised that it was his best friend that tipped him off, making everything go so much worse. His friends are trying to help him, and Lance knows for a fact he will regret this later, but in the moment, he doesn’t give a damn. 

Frustration and anger bubbles inside Lance. He knows it’s uncalled for, he knows Hunk, and Shiro, and everyone else are only trying to help him. But he can’t help being angry with everyone for treating him like a delicate piece of china. 

In this moment, he hates them for it. He hates Shiro’s unbridled optimism, he hates Keith’s pity, He hates Hunk’s sympathetic smile. He hates all of them.

“I don’t need any _therapy sessions,_ thank you very much,” Lance hisses at them, “Just leave me alone, I’ll deal with this myself.”

Lance looks down at the ground; away from everyone. His arms are crossed, and he turns on his heel to walk out. He didn’t want to speak with anyone right now. A part of Lance knew if he stuck around any longer, he would say something he would regret. He just needed to _get away._

“Lance,” Shiro says, grabbing his arm, stopping him from going any farther, “Don’t walk away from this. Something’s obviously wrong,” he lowers his voice for only Lance to hear, “You need to talk about it with someone. Keeping your feelings bottled in _isn’t_ going to help you.”

_Shiro would know, wouldn’t he?_ Lance thinks bitterly. Shiro had grown oh-so-close to Allura, and he had no doubt in his mind; Shiro went to Allura when he had his moments of self-hate. 

Thinking about how Shiro might be dealing with the same thing that Lance is _should_ give him comfort, but it makes him bitter, because at least Shiro _had_ someone to talk to. Lance had no one. He had Hunk, he supposed, but Lance always went to Hunk in the past, and he felt awful for burdening Hunk with his problems. Lance actively decided not to confide in Hunk anymore. He didn’t want to bother Hunk, and make him worry more than he already does. 

“Let me go,” Lance tugs his arm away from Shiro’s grasp, and continues taking his leave out of the healing pod room. He feels everyone’s gaze on his back, and he tried to ignore it best he could. 

Lance wandered the halls, hearing only the sound of his footsteps on the hard floors. He was glad no one had followed him. At least they respected his wishes to be left alone. He took a meandering route back to his room, because he really didn’t have a destination. However, Lance knew if he wanted to be alone, he would have to hide out in his room.

Lance slides the door open, and he slumps inside, releasing a sigh. He strips out of the healing pod suit and into his own clothes, feeling much less vulnerable now.

There was a lot on Lance’s mind. He ran the previous events through his head over and over, and each time, he becomes more convinced that he overreacted, and because of that, no one respects him anymore. 

On his small bed, Lance now sits with his knees tucked into his chest, and his arms wrapped around his legs. He pulls the navy blue duvet overtop his head and body, shielding him from the outside world; and giving him time to think poisonous thoughts. 

_Yeah, that Lance guy? He threw a temper tantrum just because people were trying to help him. To help him! Can you believe that guy is a Paladin of Voltron? They should just replace him with someone more intelligent and stable._

_I wonder how fast it would take them to replace me._

_Not too long,_ Lance thinks. He bets an Arusian could take his place, no problem.

Lance doesn’t realize he’s crying until he’s brought back to reality with a knock at his door. It was a soft knock, and Lance tried to figure out who the person at his door was. He assumed it was Hunk or Shiro, coming by to comfort him; because that’s what they do. He wanted it to be Keith, just for the irony. Maybe even Pidge; Lance wondered what Pidge would say to him if they visited. Allura might come by, just to remind him of his honorable duties as a Paladin. He doesn’t think Coran would come by because he hadn’t seen Lance much today. 

Lance takes the blanket off his head, and decides whether or not he wants to answer the door. He gets up, gives a look into the mirror to make sure he looks presentable. His eyes are red from crying, and his cheeks are wet from crying. He scrunches his face in disgust. _Such a baby, crying over stupid things._ He angrily swipes at his cheeks with his sleeve, trying to absorb the wetness. 

Lance takes in a deep breath, and tells himself to answer the door.

“Hel-” he starts, but sees no one outside his door. Had he imagined the knock? Had he tried to convince himself that someone would care enough to go out of their way to console Lance? 

Perhaps someone did come by, but left after realizing Lance was a lost cause, they left. 

Lance slammed the door behind him, and walked over to his desk. He had a glass shard sitting on the surface of the white desk. It would accompany him in his darkest moments, when he felt at his lowest. 

This was one of those moments. 

Lance picked up the piece, looking at it closely. He remembered finding it lodged in his armor that time he protected Coran from the explosion. The glass had a basic triangular shape, but the edges were jagged and chipped; imperfect. 

_Why do I feel the need to do this?_ He asks himself while rolling the sleeves of his shirt. Lance didn’t cut on his wrists, where, god forbid, he moves in the wrong way, and his sleeve rolls up just a little and gives a sight for anyone to see. No, that wasn’t like him. He either assaulted the skin above his elbow, or his shoulders, damn, even his hips. Just places that you wouldn’t see. He remembered the time he was looking for the Altean pool, and Keith had joined him in the search. Lance had not expected for anyone to meet him and hang out, so he didn’t care to wear a shirt. He figured no one else would try looking for the pool at that exact moment, so he would be fine wearing nothing on his upper half. Lance remembered tightening the grip on his towel, making sure it covered the scars on his shoulders; refusing to allow the towel to move, and for _Keith_ to see. He remembered trying to keep his arms covered, and hoped Keith didn’t notice Lance’s awkward poses to keep them hidden. Lance rarely was shirtless anyway, and that day had cemented in his mind that he _could not_ slip up like that, again. 

If there was nothing else Lance was good at, he could certainly ravage himself. Underneath the fresh wounds he gave himself, and underneath those, were older scars; most faded, some not. His entire arm was not covered; only a few inches up his arms. There was the most common place he hurt himself. There were only a few scars on his shoulders, and even less on his hips. On his hips, though, he had the deepest cuts. He knew no one would ever see those, and so he didn’t care for that part of his body. But his arms were the most frequented spot of his self harming. 

He never harmed himself when he was on Earth. He never felt the need to. Sure, he was sad, but never did he feel _not_ in control of his life. Up in space, where the only option is to _save the universe,_ Lance felt like he had no control over anything. 

He continued until the sting no longer satisfied him, and when that happened, he washed the glass shard underneath some hot water. 

He was sidetracked by the deep cuts in his arm. His sleeve had started to roll back down, almost touching some pooled blood. Some of the red liquid rolled down his arm while he washed the glass, staining the water slightly. You could tell the cuts weren’t made by a straight knife, Lance thought to himself as he turned off the water. He ought to wash his arm as well, he thinks, and he puts the glass on the counter, and turns the faucet back on. 

Lance was glad the sink (among other things) was similar to the type of sink you would see and use on his planet. It was an automatic sink; sensing his motions. Lance wiped the blood away, and blotted his arm dry with a dark blue hand towel. You couldn’t see the stray spots of blood from his barely-still-bleeding wound. 

Another round of knocks came at the door, and Lance knew he wasn’t imagining it. He jumped at the sudden noise, and hastily rolled down his sleeves. He would open the door this time. Lance shrugged on his usual coat, wanting some extra weight on him, and also wanting more layers to cover his arms. 

He was at the door, and opened it.

Coran was there, looking more serious than he usually did. It frightened Lance, seeing Coran not like his usual animated self. 

“May I come in?” Coran asks politely. His hands are behind his back, and his posture is perfect as always. At least he hasn’t totally changed, even with the serious attitude. 

“Did you come by earlier?” Lance has to ask.

Coran gives him a confused look, “No, this is the only time I’ve been down here, sorry.”

Lance nods, and makes way for Coran to come inside. He wonders who the other person was, but then he sees the navy blue towel and glass shard in his kitchenette just sitting on the counter, and runs to put them away, no longer caring about who was knocked on the door before Coran. 

“Sorry!” he says quickly, shoving both the towel and the glass into a random drawer. It happened to be the silverware drawer, “my room is a mess!” 

Lance tries to smile at Coran, and he leans on his counter awkwardly. He sees Coran look around the room thoughtfully, conveniently not noting the drawer slamming.

“Doesn’t seem too messy,” Coran tilts his head back at Lance, keeping even eye contact with the Cuban boy. In that moment, Lance freaked out.

_He knows. He knows. HE KNOWS._

Lance can’t think clearly. He doesn’t know how he knows that Coran knows. It’s in his eyes. The heavy gaze, his light Altean eyes looking back at him with a glint of _something_ Lance cannot identify. 

Coran sees the horror in Lance’s eyes, and takes a step closer, holding Lance by his shoulders.

“Calm down Lance, please,” He says calmly, “I would like to talk to you about something.”

There was a pause, Lance wasn’t ready for the conversation he was about to have. 

“When I was putting you into the healing pod suit,” Coran starts, but furrows his brows, as if he were unsure how to continue, “I found something rather alarming, and wanted to talk to you about it.”

_Ay dios mio, here it comes._

“I- I can’t,” Lance breaks down. The ugly tears are back, and Lance covers his face with his sleeves. He sobs and hates himself for breaking so fast in front of Coran. 

“Lance,” Coran stumbled, unsure how to move forward. He wrapped his arms around Lance, allowing him to get it all out before he continued.

“Do you want to sit down?” Coran asks Lance, while still holding him. Lance nods, and they sit down on his bed. Coran holds Lance's shoulders and separates from him.

“Lance, what you’re doing isn’t healthy for your body. I was alarmed when I saw the extent of your scars. How long have you-”

“Since we defeated Sendak, I think,” Lance doesn’t know why he said it, let alone so quickly.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Lance lies. Sendak was the first major battle that reminded Lance how he can’t do much in battle, and how weak he is. Then how he would be fighting in space for a long time, because there were a lot of awful aliens to bring to justice, which meant it would be a long time until he saw his family again.

“I won’t push you, Lance, but you need to find a less destructive way to cope with whatever is going on. You need to talk to someone about how you’re feeling,” Coran looks Lance in the eyes, but Lance couldn’t bear the intensity of his gaze, and so he looked away. 

“That ‘someone’ doesn’t have to be me, I know we haven’t been acquainted for very long,” Coran says, “But find someone. You and Hunk were friends on Earth, no? Why don’t you talk to him?”

Lance doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it. Hunk doesn’t deserve to be bothered by Lance all the time. He knows everyone has their own demons to deal with. He doesn’t want to add to their baggage. 

Lance shakes his head, “I’ve bothered him too much. He has so much light and life in him, you know? I don’t want to taint that.”

Coran puts an arm on Lance’s shoulder, “People could say that about _you._ ”

Lance laughs humorlessly, “Maybe then, but not now. I think everyone can see how forced my humor is.”

Coran weighs this information, “Why force it then?”

Lance thinks about this, “I don’t want to bring anyone else down and brood _all_ the time. Besides, I don’t want to bring all the attention to me when it comes to depressing things. I want to be known as the fun, charismatic guy, not the kid who misses his mommy.”

Lance _did not_ like referring to his mom like that, but it did prove his point. 

“You miss your family?” Coran asks carefully.

_I let on too much, oh quiznack,_ Lance can already feel the onslaught of homesickness consume him again. 

He nods in response to Coran’s question. 

“I know a little thing or two about that,” Coran admits, “Allura does too, for that matter.”

Lance interjects, “But that’s why I didn’t talk to either of you about it. Your and Allura’s family is dea-”

He cups a hand on his mouth, “Sorry, I- uh, I- I didn’t mean to-”

Coran puts a hand up to silence him, “No, it’s alright, I made peace with it a long time ago. I know that my family is gone.”

“I’m sorry, Coran, I’m just not used to not being without my family. I’ve lived with all my brothers and sisters since I was born. None of us have ever been apart until I left for the garrison. But the garrison was supposed to be temporary, and then we found Keith, and Shiro, then Blue, and you know the rest. 

“I used to call my mom every night at the garrison. She would pass the phone along to my siblings, and I would talk to each and every one of them about school, and sports. When I hung up on them, I would call my older sisters in college. My oldest sister went to Harvard, she’s brilliant, and she’s having the time of her life, I don’t know how. My other sister is going to a college in Georgia, and studying music and painting. Her art is beautiful, and ranges in so many styles, from abstract to realistic, and-” Lance knew he was getting off topic. 

“But I haven’t talked to any of them in months, when we used to talk daily. And then thinking about what they were told happened to me? I have no idea what the garrison is telling them! My family might think I’m dead! I don’t want to think about how much that would hurt _mi mamá porque yo-_

“Sorry, when I get stressed, I-” Lance sighs heavily, “Sorry, I know you didn’t expect to have to deal with me breaking down. You probably have something to get back to, it’s alright if you want to leave.”

Lance stands up, and Coran does the same.

“Lance, I know that conversation must have been hard for you, but are you realizing that talking about what’s wrong will help you overcome?”

“Yeah, Coran,” Lance says, “Thank you.”

Coran takes a small bow before leaving, “Dinner will be ready in approximately one varga, if you feel like coming down.”

“Thanks, Coran,” Lance shows Coran out the door, “See you around,” and shuts it. 

Lance thinks he feels a little better, but he’s not sure if he’s ready to see the others yet. 

After all of the talking Lance had done, he was tired, and also very thirsty. He took a small cup from the cabinet in his kitchenette and filled it from the tap(which he would have to ask Coran later, where the tap even came from). 

Preparing for bed, Lance stripped of his unnecessary clothes, and tossed them in a random corner. He kept his grey and blue shirt on, along with a pair of boxers. 

He had climbed into bed, snuggled into the blankets; and was about to fall asleep when a knock came at the door. 

He groans, “Man, I just got comfy, too…” but throws on his silky robe to answer whoever was there.

Lance walks slowly to the door, questioning who it might be now. 

“Keith?” Lance raises a brow. “What are you doing here?”

Keith is unreadable. He has a bowl of food goo in his hands, and shoves it at Lance without much thought.

He accidentally jabs Lance in the gut with the bowl when giving it to him, causing Lance to elicit a groan.

“What the quiznack, Keith?” Lance takes the bowl in his hands, ignoring how his fingertips brushed against Keith’s, instead frustrated with the stomach jab.

“Sor-” Keith almost apologizes, but then thinks better, and retaliates, “You know, all I came here to do was give your fat quiznack food, and you yell at me? Quiznack you, Lance.”

“Well maybe if I wasn’t _impaled_ in the stomach, I’d thank you!”

“You’re welcome anyway!” Keith yells, then turns and leaves. 

Lance shuts the door, and looks down at the green food goo. He will never understand how something so vibrantly colored and weird looking, could be so beneficial to his body.

Aliens, man.

Aliens.

Lance will never get over them.

He doesn't know if he's still refering to the food goo or Keith, at that point.


	2. cookies, crystals, and galran princes

Lance didn’t know if he wanted to eat the food goo. He had almost fallen asleep without dinner; so it wasn’t like he was expecting to eat. Regardless, his stomach grumbled, so he sat down with a spoon and the bowl and ate dinner quietly.

He really was thankful someone had decided to drop by with food; he just figured it wouldn’t be _Keith_ to do it. He wanted to say thank you in a genuine manner to him, but speaking nicely to Keith _isn’t something that happens._

Lance finishes the bowl, and tosses it into his sink. His gaze shifts to his arms while he washes the bowl, and wonders to himself, _what would Keith say if he saw my scars?_

Well, honestly, maybe nothing. If he noticed them and didn’t say anything in the elevator, why would he say anything now? Perhaps he never saw them? 

Lance had a hard time believing the latter. He might’ve tried to hide them the best he could, but he started having serious doubts. Keith probably did see the scars, and thinks lesser of him because of them. 

Lance tries to shove Keith from his mind when he goes to bed. Tossing on his left side, then his right, switching positions; none of it helps Lance fall asleep. It takes hours for him to finally doze off. 

…

_Lance looks around his surroundings. There’s only black. Everything. He can’t see anything, and the vastness scares him. He doesn’t like being alone here._

_“Lance,” a voice calls. Lance was almost happy to see someone else, but he knew this meeting would be anything from good._

_He turns to see Shiro appear out of thin air, dressed heroically in his paladin armor. Lance looks down at himself to see what he was wearing; he had no idea._

_Lance was in his casual attire, but without his coat. He looked down at his arms and saw blood staining his sleeves where his cuts would usually be. He saw blood staining the waistline of his jeans and the hem of his shirt as well. Lance craned his neck to gaze at his shoulders, which were turning the blue sleeves a dark purple._

_“You’re so WEAK, Lance,” Shiro spits at him, suddenly towering tens of feet above Lance. Lance closes his eyes in fear._

_“You’ll never catch up to us,” Lance hears Keith say, and opens his eyes to see the towering Shiro was replaced by Keith._

_Lance keeps his eyes open and watches Keith wisp away and Hunk comes to being, “No one cares how you’re feeling,” Hunk says, “Have you ever stopped to think about how we might be suffering too?”_

_Pidge’s figure appears now; Hunk had disappeared, “Not everything is about YOU, Lance. Get over yourself.”_

_All at once, everyone appears out of the surrounding blackness, all of them terrifyingly taller than him. Maybe thirty feet tall? Lance couldn’t tell._

_They all yell obscenities at him, and take turns kicking Lance’s body around. Lance couldn’t handle the attack from his friends. It hurt him so bad. Lance was crying, and he found himself curled into a ball, still getting kicked in his sides and face._

_Shiro laughed at Lance, “How dare you think you could keep up with us?”_

…

Lance wakes up ungracefully by falling out of his bed. He never wants to go back to sleep. 

Lance slowly climbs back into his bed, and tries to calm his heart rate down. He takes several deep breaths before hearing someone burst into his room.

“Lance!” Hunk shouts, “Wake up, I brought alien cookies.”

Lance cracks a smile and leaps out of bed with a new light in him. Suddenly his dream is forgotten, and now the only thing on his mind are how the alien cookies taste. He notices Hunk in a long dirtied apron with random purple splotches on it, and in his hands was a tray of presumably cookies, but they looked like purple disks. No fault on Hunk, of course, maybe they were _good_ purple disk cookies? 

“Nice job, buddy,” Lance gives bedroom eyes to the cookies, feeling hunger rise in his stomach. 

“Dude, want one?” Hunk moves the cookie tray towards Lance. He nods hastily, and nabs a purple cookie. 

_At least it doesn’t feel like a plastic disk,_ Lance picks it up and examines the weirdly colored cookie. Without another moment’s hesitation, takes a bite.

It tastes exactly what a chocolate chip cookie should taste like; it wasn’t dry and crumbly, but chewy and still slightly warm from the oven.

“Holy Kaltenecker,” Lance says while chewing, “This is fantastic, Hunk. How?”

Hunk lifts his chin proudly, “I’m amazing.”

Lance laughs, “That you are, Hunk. That you are.”

Hunk laughs with Lance; something that didn’t happen too often anymore. 

“All paladins report to the control room, please,” They hear Allura say over the communication system. Her tone sounded calm, but urgent. 

“I’ll let you change,” Hunk walks to the exit, “See ya!”

Lance shuts the door behind Hunk, and secretly wonders if Hunk will remember to take off his apron before he meets up with Allura. 

Lance smiles to himself, _He’ll probably forget about it, and wear it._

Lance changes out of the clothes he went to bed in. His shirt comes off with ease, but Lance notices the scabs forming on his newer wounds. He frowns, remembering how he felt last night. He was glad he was out of that mood, even if it was only temporarily. 

He walked down the halls into the control room where everyone was. They all looked at Lance, as if they were surprised he showed up.

Coran, who was next to Allura, gave Lance a not-so-discreet thumbs up, causing him to smile. 

Lance finger guns at them, “Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

Hunk facepalms, remembering the exact episode that quote came from. Lance noticed he was in fact wearing the apron still.

Allura tilts her head in confusion, not understanding the reference, “We knew we would see you again, Lance, we just didn’t know when,” the last part of her sentence ends like a question.

Lance rolls his eyes and gives a toothy smile to Allura, “No- it’s a- you know what, nevermind. You understand me Hunk, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Hunk hides his smile with a hand. 

Lance makes a side comment stressing how they need to “stream some Netflix up in this castle”. Allura moves on, not voicing her question about _what the heck a ‘netflix’ is._ She’ll have to ask Shiro later.

“Alright, Paladins,” She starts, “We’ve received a beacon from a nearby planet. We don’t know if it truly is a distress beacon, but we are going to assist them with whatever they need, regardless.”

“Why are we going in, then, if it’s not to fight the Galra and directly fight Zarkon’s reign?” Pidge asks sassily. 

“Even if they aren’t in danger, we haven’t added any planets to the Voltron alliance recently, and we’re going to need all the help we can get with overthrowing the Galra empire,” Allura informs.

“So we’re being errand boys?” Keith asks, confused about the importance of their task.

“We need to-” Allura is interrupted by Shiro, which takes Allura aback.

“If that’s what the locals require, then so be it,” Shiro says, “I don’t understand why you all are against this. We could use some time off from all the fighting.”

Pidge makes a face that says, _‘fair point’._ Lance and Hunk nod in agreement. 

“Anyway,” Allura resumes, “The native alien’s planet was harvested by the Galra, but we’ve still seen small villages on the outskirts of the major Galra cities. The beacon is in one of the native villages far from the Galra cities; so we should be able to avoid having to fight the Galra.”

“Wait,” Hunk says, “The Galra live on planets? I thought they only lived on their Galra battleships.’

“Hunk,” Pidge says, “Of course they live on planets as well. You can’t honestly believe their entire population lives in space, right? Like the children and other people who can’t fight? Where else would _they_ go?”

Allura stops the others’ conversation, “Also, we will not be harming any Galra that we come across. They weren’t the ones to fight us in this war. They haven’t done anything. There aren’t any armies to defend them here, and we will not be stooping to the Galra’s level in terms of fighting a war. If we kill their innocent, we’re no better than them.”

“Well said, Allura,” Coran holds his posture perfectly straight, “Shall we depart now?”

Allura nods and Coran walks to the control panel and directs the ship through space.

“Get in your paladin armor,” Allura orders politely, “We’ll be there in a tick.”

The paladins nodded, and everyone went their separate ways to get changed. The trip was short like Allura said; everyone hadn’t even started to change when they arrived on the planet. 

Lance was filled with a healthy anxiety fueled by innocent curiosity. He wondered what the aliens neighboring the Galra would look like, and if any of them might be pretty. How different would they look then humans? Were there any classic love stories between the village aliens and the Galra? Making Galra/other alien hybrids? That would be very interesting. Maybe Keith could vent his Galra angst with another half Galra.

He barely remembers putting his paladin gear on, and now he’s back in the control room with everyone else; suited up and ready to go.

“We’ve maneuvered around the Galra cities, and they don’t seem aware of our presence,” Coran informs, “Despite this, still proceed with caution. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention.”

Lance pipes up, “Will we be needing our lions for this?”

Coran shakes his head, “We doubt there will be any negative confrontation, but, Pidge,” he looks over to them, “If you don’t mind, it might be easier for us to go in your lion; because of it’s cloaking abilities.”

“No,” Pidge says thoughtfully, “But that reminds me, I should install it in everyone else’s lions.”

“Man, I don’t think yellow want’s another paladin poking around inside them,” Hunk says.

Coran moves the conversation forward, “Hunk and, I need you to stay with me on the ship, I have a task for you.”

Hunk nods, and Coran continues, “Everyone else will hop into Pidge’s lion and help out the native aliens.”

The other paladins nod in understanding, and head to the green lion for take off.

 

…

 

Everyone decided to cram into the cockpit with Pidge, who didn’t seem too excited about the extra people crowding their area. Lance leaned (annoyingly, Pidge would say) on the pilot’s chair; trying to see through the lion’s view. He wanted to see what the Galra cities looked like. Did they have flying cars that sped around and over buildings?

The green lion was miles off from the major city they were trying to avoid, but Lance wanted to know what the city looked like, and he was straining his eyes to focus on the buildings farther away. 

As if sensing his curiosity, the green lion put up a live image of the city on the screen. Lance had no idea how the green lion could do such a thing, however he didn’t complain. 

He wasn’t expecting to see similarities between the cities from Earth and the cities from this planet. There were buildings, most of them having oblong shapes, not generally rectangular. The buildings looked more fluid and living; as if they were dormant creatures. Shiny dark purples, reds, and greys were the general theme of the buildings. 

Even without proper knowledge about the Galra culture, you could still tell the age differences of the Galra citizens. Older Galra tend to be more slouched, yet still towering over 6 feet. Their eyes were a darker, more muddied, yellow, while the younger Galra had lighter bright yellow eyes. 

The labeling on the stores and other buildings around them were unrecognizable; probably because they were in a Galran language.

“The city is pretty populated with old people,” Pidge says, still piloting, “Do you think they have hospices around every block?”

“I don’t believe that is how that Galra build their cities,” Allura says, “From what I remember my father telling me, the residential planets of the Galra are set up with schools and living areas in the same place; so the children don’t have to travel far for an education. Children learn history and other core subjects, and when they become proficient, they are sent to another part of the city, where they train to become soldiers to for the Galran Army.

Allura continues, “10,000 years ago, the Galra were going through a civil war about the Druids. A small group of different species of aliens were dabbling in magic. I remember my father being so surprised when he heard about the things they could do. Magic wasn’t a well understood science, then. Druids, at that point, were treated like outsiders, because no one approved of the magic they were conducting. Most of the spells were to hurt other people, rarely to help them. The Galra who were in favor of the Druids, wanted them in law enforcement and agent positions. The Druids’ ability to get tasks done and gather information -through vile methods, mind you- _was_ effective. But there were some Galra who didn’t like the Druids because they thought what the Druids were doing wasn’t moral and was breaking many Galran laws.”

The image of the city disappears, and Pidge says, “We’ll be landing in a few moments.”

The lion is directed downward, and Pidge lands on the rocky dark grey planet.

“So what happened to make the Galra team up with the Druids?” Shiro asks Allura.

“Voltron, most likely,” Allura responds, “Zarkon would team up with anyone to get his hands on Voltron.”

“And what do you think of the Druids?” Lance asks.

Allura hesitates, “The Druids aren’t inherently evil; there was just a bad group of them that rose to high political and physical power. Having a good Druid can help; because they are quick and disciplined. They have fantastic restoration abilities.”

“How do people become druids?” Pidge asks as they stand up from the pilot seat to walk out. “Is there a wiki-how?”

“I have no idea how beings become Druids,” Allura admits, “I only remember that they were so new, and no one knew anything about them.”

The team walks out of the lion from the mouth. Pidge gives Green a pat and tells them they’ll be back soon. Around them is only land, and in the far horizon off to the right, is the Galra inhabited city; while to the left, there appears to be a small village less than a mile off. Allura said the beacon was located near the village, and that they would formally introduce themselves to the new aliens.

“We’re far enough from the Galra cities to remain unseen,” Allura says. “But it appears the Native’s have spotted us.” 

“Let’s get to it then,” Pidge remarks, and the team walks to -presumably- the Village entrance. There’s a two foot rock border around the village, which must be football field sized at best. The border is made from many rocks of different sizes; all of them stacking and spanning around the village, which contained similar rock structured housing. In the middle of the Village, the paladins could spot a 10 foot tall totem, and a smaller blueish glowing crystal behind it. 

The view of the rest of the village is crowded when many aliens swarm to the opening in the border. When getting closer, Lance noted that they looked eerily human. The group stops in front of the group of people, and the team gives the aliens a once over. The mission is temporarily forgotten.

Keith pulls out his bayard, and Lance whacks him in the arm, “Put it away, fool!” He says jokingly.

Keith was trying to speak up, but was shushed by Lance.

A girl with short cropped dark brown hair and warm brown eyes walks to the front. She looks no older than Allura (well, her physical form) and carried herself like a leader. She wore a black T-shirt and jeans, with black boots. He thought the outfit looked similar to something his older sister would wear. Lance noticed that when she walked, she made no sound. He looked down at the crumbly rock beneath them; and saw that every single one of the aliens were floating on the air. 

A whole bunch of questions flew out of the mouths of the Paladins at the same time.

“Why are you floating?” Lance curiously asks.

“Are you Altean?” Allura gawks, but her tone hopeful.

“Y’all human or something?” Pidge says casually. 

“What was the distress beacon for?” Shiro stays focused on the main task.

“Why do you look like Lance?” Keith says, confused.

Everyone looks at Keith, who shifts uncomfortably. 

“Seriously,” Keith says, “They look just like you guys,” He gestures to the girl with short brown hair, “That’s a spitting image of Lance,” he gestures to the other random humans, “that looks like Pidge, and Hunk, and Shiro, and Coran. And she looks like- wait, are you guys not seeing this?”

Lance, Pidge, Shiro, and Allura shake their heads. 

“I see humans,” Pidge says. 

“Me too, actually,” Lance says.

“Same here,” Shiro says, “But not the team, just normal humans.”

Pidge and Lance mutter in agreement.

Allura glares at them all, “Do you not see their pointed ears and facial markings? They’re obviously Altean!”

The girl looks over to her fellow human-looking friends and comrads, as if saying, _‘Are you seeing this? Can you believe they don’t know?’_

She looks back at Lance’s team, “We appear as whatever you are most comfortable with seeing. You perceive us as something familar to you. This is why you,” She points to Allura, “Think I’m an Altean; you all,” she gestures to Shiro, Pidge, and Lance “think I’m human. But you,” The girl looks at Keith with a pondering expression, “I’m not sure why _you_ see specific people. Do you not have close relationships on your home planet with your native people?”

Keith shifts on his feet uncomfortably, “I dunno…”

“Does the same thing go for clothes?” Lance shifts the topic off of loner!orphan!Keith.

“Yes,” she explains simply. 

Lance smiled to himself, of course he saw this alien wearing something he would see his older sister, Maya, wear. They were the closest in his large family, after all. 

“Ok before you answered that boring question,” Lance says, brushing over the -actually super freaking cool- ability to shift their appearances factor, “Why are you guys floating?”

The brown haired girl laughed, “Our species magnetic selves repel the planet’s magnetic field, _yadda yadda yadda...”_

Lance knows he heard the alien say _‘yadda, yadda, yadda’,_ “The planet’s what now?” 

Pidge saves Lance from more confusion, “Did you seriously not understand what he said? Have you ever tried to put two sides of the same magnet together, but they don’t stick? It’s sort of like that, but gravitational fields keep them from bouncing off the planet. So they’re stuck with not ever being able to touch the earth.”

“Huh, interesting. Wait, ‘He’? Don’t you mean she?”

The alien girl smiles again, “You’re not getting it, still. Everyone sees _and hears_ something different. What we say can also be translated into something you understand. If you don’t understand, then it probably sounds like we babble. However, fun fact, we do not know what you see.”

“So if Lance flirts with you,” Pidge starts, “Will you flirt back with him?”

“No,” She says firmly, then hesitates, “Well, perhaps; if what I’m saying can be translated into a flirty tone, in his mind,” She winks. Lance thinks he was the only one to perceive a wink, and smiles to himself.

“Moving on,” Allura says impatiently, but a twinge of sadness in her tone. She must’ve been disappointed to find out the aliens were not, in fact, Altean. “We are the Paladins of Voltron, and we received a stress beacon call from this location.”

The villagers all look to their leader, the brown haired girl, and the paladins, with expectancy.

A tall boy with blond hair and dark eyes nods, “Our village battery is running low, and we don’t have much power left.”

Lance quietly wonders how much of the conversation he hears is butchered. 

…

After being led to the center of the city, all of the villagers have left, except for the brown haired girl. From what Pidge, Allura and the girl talked about on the walk over, Lance has learned a little more about what’s going on:

The main power source for the small village is a “Pidge-sized”(the alien girl’s words, not Lance’s) glowing crystal in the middle of the village; which is what they saw when they arrived.   
The Galra come from the city and harvest energy from the crystal to take back to the city and give to those in hospitals, because the energy has healing properties.  
The Crystal is similar to a life source, and if you take too much at one time, the crystal will die. Shiro explained it to Lance like drawing blood. Your body can make more blood to replace what was taken, but if too much is taken at once, there will be negative consequences, like death.   
At the moment, the crystal was in a phase of ‘could quite possibly die if the bleeding doesn’t stop’

“So how do we plan to go about fixing the issue?” Lance asks, leaning against the totem next to the crystal, “I mean, I know we hate the Galra and all, but it sounds like it’s being used for a good cause.”

“Can you heal it like a balmera, Princess?” Shiro asks.

Allura’s eyes light up with the idea, and she looks to the brown haired girl for permission, “May I try?”

The girl nods to Allura, and steps out of the way, so Allura can make contact with the crystal. She kneels down, and touches the core of it. 

The crystal doesn’t glow, and doesn’t show signs of getting better.

Allura furrows her brows in frustration, “This should be working. I don’t understand why-”

The color of the crystal changes abruptly transitions to a black color, and Allura’s body jerks in a spasm. The pads of her hand that were touching the crystal had a black tinge to them, and her hand retracts from the surface, as if she were being burned. The black coloring on her hand fades back to her normal color, and the now black crystal slowly turns back to blue outward from the spot she touched. 

Shiro helps Allura to her feet, and examines her hands carefully, “Princess, are you alright?”

“What the hell just happened?” Pidge demands. 

The brown haired girl inserts herself between the crystal and Allura with her arms and hands out wide; as if she were guarding the crystal.

“What did you do?” The girl yells, her eyes searing with anger. “You’ve weakened it even more than it already was!”

“I- I-” Allura tries to defend herself, but Lance doesn’t believe Allura tried to weaken the crystal at all.

“She was just trying to help,” Lance firmly steps between them.

“Listen,” Shiro says calmly, “She didn’t mean to-”

Shiro was interrupted by a loud aircraft speeding towards the village from the Galra city.

The aircraft didn’t appear quite like the Galra battleships that the team has fought in the past, but you could see the familiar Galra tech design in the dark purple colors and angular build. It was a very small aircraft, maybe the size of a helicopter, but the shape was way different, and it didn’t appear to need wing blades. 

“Oh god,” the girl says, tearing her gaze away from Allura. She was captivated by the flying ship. The other villagers all crowded around the leader and the paladins.

“They’re coming,” brown haired girl says, “you need to keep them away from the crystal. It can’t handle anymore energy being taken from it.”

“Allura, you have no armor or weapons,” Shiro says matter-of-factly, “You and-” he looks at the paladins here with them, “Lance,” he chooses, “will help keep the villagers safe while the rest of us keep the Galra at bay.”

Lance doesn’t like to be sidelined, but he knows Shiro chose him to protect the princess as well, and that job is fine with him. 

“Aye aye captain,” Lance salutes.

They separate, leaving Lance, Allura, and the villagers. 

“Do you have a shelter somewhere?” Allura asks the leader, “Or an area where they can’t find us?”

The girl’s brows furrow, “Nowhere that can safely store all of us…” She thinks for a moment. “We can go to the main hut, where I reside. That might be big enough!”

The girl shouts over the village, “Report to the Main Hut!”

The villagers who were crowding around them now disperse and quickly make their way to the largest structure in the village, which might be the size of your typical two car garage. There was no door, and the building was made of the same rock the planet was. There seemed to not be a lot of resources on this planet. 

Many villagers pile in, cramming like sardines, and the leader stays outside with Allura and Lance. Lance activates his bayard, and watches the rest of his team confront a tall Galran man. 

“Who is that?” Lance asks.

Allura visibly pales. The short haired leader speaks up, “That’s the Prince,” she looks confused, “He’s never came before; usually it’s the City’s Officers who come by. This is not good.”

“Allura?” Lance says, “do you know him?”

Her gaze turns to Lance, her eyes still wide and in disbelief, “We need to get out of here. Somehow he found out we were here, and now he’s-”

They all hear Shiro shout in pain when the “Prince” swings a white sword -seemingly made out of light- at him. He falls to the ground and yells something incomprehensible to Keith and Pidge. Shiro is holding his chest; and even though Lance can’t see his face, he can guess what Shiro looks like. Lance activates his coms in the helmet to try and hear what’s going on all those yards away.

Keith is immediately running at the long white haired Galra with his bayard activated before Shiro gets back up. 

Lance can hear the man laugh at Pidge and Keith trying to attack him. The sword made of light doesn’t fly through the Keith’s bayard, but makes contact, as if the light was a solid blade. 

“I defeat your most powerful paladin without even breaking a sweat?” Lance can hear over his com, “Pathetic.”

Lance brings up his bayard and aims at the white haired Prince. The Galra swings his leg at Keith’s leg and trips him, and lifts his light sword at Pidge, who is getting up after being shoved to the ground previously. They duck and slide away from the sword just as the Prince makes another swing at Keith, who is now on his feet, but heavily favoring one leg, due to the other leg possibly being broken from the savage kick that was just given to him earlier. 

Lance takes his aim at the crook in the Prince’s armor; right between both of his arm guards, basically on the inner side of his elbow, before he can bring his sword down on Keith and shatter his armor, or worse. 

The blow causes the Prince to shout in curses that Lance couldn’t recognize. The Galran Prince looks past the red paladin and at Lance directly, causing a shiver to shake down his spine. 

“Oh?” he can hear the smirk from his com. 

And in typical Druid fashion, the Prince has suddenly appeared _right in front of Lance,_ who has absolutely no idea what just happened. Allura and the village’s leader take a step back from Lance and the Prince. 

“And who might you be?” The Prince looks down and tilts his head with a cunning smile. His stark white hair is smooth and admittedly scarily beautiful. It passes his shoulders, almost to his mid-back. But this man is terrifying, no matter his looks. His yellow eyes scare Lance the most. They seem so conniving and sneaky, but full of other dark emotions Lance can’t read. 

He freaks out, but manages to keep eye-contact with the Galra, while also shooting his foot, hoping to gain some time to think of a plan. 

More curses are spewed out from the Prince, and Lance takes this time to create some space between him and the enemy. Lance tries to direct the Galra’s attention to him, and not at the villagers or Allura by moving around to have the Prince’s back facing the Main Hut. 

The Prince looks up at Lance with a pained smirk, and disappears again.

When he reappears, Lance can no longer breathe, because the Galran Prince is behind him, choking him out. Lance drops his bayard and focuses on prying the strong Prince’s hand off his neck. 

“You know,” he whispers in Lance’s ear, another long slender hand stroking Lance’s face while some white strands of hair falling onto his shoulder, “I’ve always fancied a good sniper. They’re always so… _underestimated,_ aren’t they?”

Lance can barely focus on anything else except for getting the purple hands off him. He chokes out a curse before his vision starts to fade. He can hear people screaming in the background, but Lance pushes it to the back of his mind. His knees go weak, but the Prince’s steady hand keeps him upright as he’s choked out. 

“Oh look, your friends are coming to rescue you,” He says, unamused, “I suppose I should let you live; only because I like you, though.”

The Prince’s weight is lifted from Lance’s neck and he struggles to gasp for air as he falls to his knees. His neck feels bruised and clogged, as if something broke and won’t let him breathe. He hacks and coughs until more air can be processed through his lungs. 

“Lance!” Keith is in front of him now, hoisting him up, “Are you alright?” 

The Prince reappears behind Keith and kicks him in the back, sending him forward on top of Lance, who falls backward on his butt. Then the Prince is gone again. 

Lance ends up being the one cradling Keith in his arms, “I think this is a good bonding moment.”

Keith looks like he’s about to smile when his eyes go wide. Lance stiffens, feeling the presence behind him. 

“Lance!” he hears his name called before he feels something hard make contact with the side of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's time for a rant. i want to get this off my chest, but i dont have the inner strength to tell the people who i need to tell this to. sorry to tell all of you guys, instead. ok so, i talk about voltron a lot. and by a lot i mean A LOT. as in, i talk about it to at least one of my friends about it each day. i have a group chat called shklance and i send voltron memes to it religiously. here's the thing; i don't have anything else in my life that's going alright at the moment. i hate my life at home, school is stressing me out to no end, and the people i work with piss the hell out of me. voltron makes me really happy, and helps me escape from the stupidness that is my life right now. so im sorry if i talk about it too much. it's just that, voltron is the one of, if not THE only thing that's keeping me from not being totally and utterly depressed. i fill all my spare time reading fanfic, liking fanart, and i know im obsessed, im well aware of that. i just, idk, really like what this fandom has to offer. thanks for listening, also thanks for all the love on this fic so far :)


	3. crystals, cooking, and blue nails

“Lance!” Keith shouts when he sees the white haired Galra deliver a swift kick to his friend’s face. Keith had tried to pull Lance into his chest so he wouldn’t get hit, but he was too late. Lance’s eyes fluttered closed and he fell limp into Keith’s grasp. Keith’s hands felt blood from a new head wound on Lance’s head start staining his short brown hair and droplets fall onto Keith’s hands that hold him. 

_Damn that Galra,_ he thinks angrily. He tries to keep Lance close to him with one hand while the other holds his bayard defensively against the Galran.

“I was only supposed to come and complete another extraction of the crystal,” the white haired Galra says, “But finding all of _you_ was a treat!”

The Galra man swings his sword around in his hand like a toy, flipping its position back and forth, keeping Keith wondering what he was going to do next. 

Pidge was still back with Shiro, he knew, trying to get him on his feet and to safety. Keith could see Allura behind the Galran man, obviously wanting to help, but having no means to do so. His eyes flicker back to the yellow ones staring down at him. 

Something changes in the man's mood. His curious now, as if killing the paladins wasn’t just on his mind.

“I wonder how angry the city would get if I shut down their main power source for health care? I mean, obviously they won’t be getting much more power by the looks of it anyway at this rate. And these aliens?” He gestures his sword behind him, and tosses a devilish smile over his shoulder, looking past Allura and at the aliens who were hiding, “They’ll be useless beyond that.”

“Don’t hurt them, Lotor!” Allura shouts from behind the purple alien with long white hair. She had left the village’s leader with their people so she could defend her own team. 

He turns around from Keith to see her, and suddenly appears ten feet away from Keith, in front of her, now gone from Keith’s immediate reach. 

“Good to see you again, ‘Lura, we thought you died all those years ago,” he smiles, “a shame that isn’t what happened.”

Allura scowls at the Prince. Keith takes this brief moment to carry an unconscious Lance over by the crystal, where Keith leans his friend up against it. Lance’s neck curves at an awkward angle, but at least he’s not lying with his face on the hard rock surface. 

Keith hesitates before leaving Lance, giving him a once over, to make sure he’s alright to leave. He sees Pidge join the fray with them, out of the corner of his eye, trying to defend from a teleporting Prince who knows a hell of a lot about fighting. Keith sidesteps in front of the Princess and Pidge to help defend from the Prince.

What is the Prince’s goal? Why is he attacking them? How did he know Allura? Where is Shiro?

Keith wasn’t sure which question he wanted answered first, and he made a mental note to ask Allura questions regarding her and the Galran Prince at a more appropriate time. He was too busy trying to parry attacks and create an opening for him or Pidge to take advantage of and fight back. 

“I’m growing quite tired of this,” Lotor says in a bored tone between attacks; as if fighting like this wasn’t taking much out of him. “I think I’ll just blow you all up and leave. I’m done here.”

The light sword against Keith’s bayard is lifted, and the Prince is gone. 

“What?” Keith questions, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Where is he?” Allura shouts at no one in particular.

The paladins are looking around frantically. Keith spots the aircraft the Prince rode in on; a large gun from the side of the ship folds outward and aims towards the village building that everyone is hiding in.

He whips his head back around and yells a warning, “Get out of there now!”

Keith watches as the aliens who disguised themselves as his friends begin yelling and trying to pile out of the building for a new cover. He hears the sound of the alien gun wiring up, and not a moment later does he hear and feel the shot fired. Keith watches as someone who looks like Lance, and another who looks like Shiro, have looks of absolute fear across their faces, and it breaks Keith. The blast hits the Lance-lookalike first, and Keith watches as a friend of his screams and writhes in pain as his skin blisters and festers from the intense heat, but not a second later, is obliterated and enveloped in fire.

He shouts his friend’s name, but remembers that the alien isn’t really him, isn’t really his Lance. Keith’s eyes dart around to find the crystal he laid Lance up against. He remembers how close the crystal was to the blasted building, and he feels his stomach churn at the thought of his Lance turning out like the fake one. He couldn’t have that, wouldn’t have that. 

There’s screaming and shouting, smoke, fire and molten rock around him. The smell of burning flesh fills his nose and Keith doesn’t have to turn around again to know that the aliens are gone. They all were killed, killed because the Prince decided it to be so. 

Keith struggles to see anything. His eyes burn and his skin feels the heat through his paladin armor. He pushes the irritations away, and tries to find at least one of his friends. Allura and Pidge weren’t far when Lotor made the shot. Keith looked up at the sky and saw no aircraft to be found. Lotor must’ve left after his damage was done. 

Keith inhales too much of the smoke and ends up coughing violently.

“Lance!” He shouts, and coughs again, “Pidge! Allura!” 

Keith can see the blue crystal through a smoke screen, and runs towards it without any thought. The duller blue color doesn’t register until he’s a foot away, and he notices the crystal has changed shape; into a pod-like form, with a body lying inside of it. Keith drops to his knees and tries to focus his eyes beyond the distortion of the crystal, and sees Lance is the one inside of it. He has no burns on his body; as far as Keith can tell, and he even notices the gash on his forehead is- no longer a gash at all, there’s no wound, just dried blood. 

“What the-” He slams his fist onto the crystal, and it doesn’t crack. He needs to get Lance out of there! What if he can’t breathe? But also why did it change shape and protect Lance?

He looks around him and he spots the green lion just outside the village. How he didn’t notice the lion land, he doesn’t know. He assumes he blocked it out because he was so focused on finding Lance.

“Help!” Keith shouts. He realizes his coms turned off, and he turns his back on, so his friends can hear him.

“Help, anyone, please,” he says desperately, “I have Lance, but I don’t think I can carry him alone- I- something’s happened to him.”

“On our way, Keith,” Pidge reports back to him quickly. 

Keith sighs in relief, and gazes back down at Lance inside the crystal coffin-

It’s not a coffin, he tells himself. It’s like a healing pod. 

The green lion walks closer, before it’s mouth opens and rests its head on the ground in front of Keith. Pidge and Allura run to him from the mouth of the lion. The urgency in both of their strides falters when they see Keith holding the blue crystal in his arms on the ground. 

“Help me carry him up,” Keith positions his hands to lift the coff- pod- up into the lion. 

Pidge and Allura go on the other side of Keith, “One, Two,” Keith, along with the others, lift up the blue crystal pod that was protecting Lance, “Three.”

The smooth crystal slides in Keith’s grasp, and he can see Allura and Pidge struggle to keep a grip on the crystal pod. Then add in the fact that the crystal itself was around 100 pounds; and also, they were carrying Lance as well. The crystal pod was heavy.

They walk sideways up the green lion’s mouth, and into the cockpit. A gurney was already cramped into the small space, with Shiro’s body lying on it; who’s top paladin armor has been stripped and thrown aside on the ground, and replaced with gauze wrapping around his chest that already has spots of blood soaking through. Keith didn’t want to know how in the hell Pidge took Shiro into the lion without any help from anyone else. 

Somehow, Lance’s body doesn’t shift around when Keith shuffles him around to fit inside of the tiny area. Keith stands, holding the pod straight up, while Allura holds the gurney in place.

“Coran,” Pidge pages, “Please prepare a healing pod,” they look back at Lance and furrow their brows, “Maybe two.”

A live video feed of Coran inside the castle pops up, “Roger that. What happened to the villag-”

“Dead,” Allura says darkly. Coran looks over to her on the video, “Lotor showed up and killed them.”

Coran looks off in thought, “Why is _he_ busying himself with insignificant errands for the domestic cities?”

“I don’t know,” Allura admits, “But he has gained druidic powers.”

“That’s an,” Coran stumbles, “ _Interesting_ development. Wait, what’s wrong with Shiro? Why do you have such a large crystal in there?”

Coran must not be able to see _through_ the large blue crystal that holds Lance inside. 

“Lotor fought Shiro, and Lance,” Allura looks over at him through the crystal, “We don’t know what’s happened to him. He’s inside the crystal.”

Coran nods, and Hunk joins in on the screen. His eyes widen and asks quietly, “Why’s he in there?”

“Hunk we don’t know! Allura just said that!” Keith fumes, his grip on the crystal tightening. If he knew what happened and why, he would’ve fixed it by now, and Lance wouldn’t be comatose inside the crystal anymore.

A sudden blast to the right side of the green lion sends them flying off to the side. Keith groans as his body smacks into the crystal, and he falls over onto his side, with him leaning on the crystal, by Lance’s feet. Allura’s hands loosen from the gurney by accident, and it wheels into Keith’s midsection, but it halts there, with Keith’s body acting as a stopper. The force knocks the wind out of Keith, and Shiro’s robotic arm falls off the gurney and smacks Keith in the face. 

“Goddamnit!” Keith shouts in frustration, “What the hell is going on!?”

The lion’s viewpoint directs at the aircraft Lotor was using earlier.

“We do not have the _time_ to deal with this right now,” Pidge yells as they push the thrusters all the way forward. The lion blasts through the sky at top speed, and the force causes Keith to slide backward. He gently pushes the gurney away from him, and lifts Shiro’s hand back onto the gurney. He adjusts the angle the crystal was leaning at, and is back to normal after rubbing the spot on his nose that was smacked by the Galra robotic hand. He checked for a bloody nose and was pleased to find there was none.

“Sorry Keith,” the Princess resumes her grip on the gurney. 

He just nods in response.

The green lion dodges shots coming from behind them, and accelerates through the planet’s atmosphere; swiftly returning to the castle. The much smaller aircraft that Lotor was flying, doesn’t seem to be able to go into space; or at least, that’s what Keith assumes, because Lotor doesn’t follow them out.

“We need to get Shiro into a pod as soon as possible,” Allura states as she stares down at his semi-conscious body. 

The lion lands back inside the castle, and as soon as the lion’s mouth opens to let them out, Hunk and Coran are there to help. 

Coran helps Allura wheel out Shiro as quickly and safely as possible. 

Hunk gestures to Keith, asking him to move so he could get a grip onto the crystal pod. Keith obliges, and Pidge joins to help. The three of them follow Coran and Allura with Shiro. 

Shiro moans as the gurney runs over the bump between the lion's mouth and the floor of the castle. 

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Allura says softly, but Keith hears it. He wants to yell at her for not being careful with his friend, but he’s too busy trying to keep Lance from hitting the floor. Keith has the upper part of the crystal in his arms; where Lance’s head and shoulders are. Pidge and Hunk are on opposite sides of his lower half, carrying him. The crystal is heavy, and all of their arms burn from carrying it for so long. 

The run to the healing pods was silent, for the most part. No one said anything, all of them were in agreement to talk later, after Shiro was stabilized, and after someone ran tests on Lance to see what the hell is happening to him. 

Keith doesn’t recall Coran putting Shiro into the healing pod. He was too busy holding the crystal upright, and worrying about Lance. The crystal that Lance was inside of was placed on top of a table with Coran’s help, and Coran began hooking up wires into the crystal. They seemed to attach like suction cups to the blue crystal. 

“I’m going to run some tests to see what’s going on with Lance,” Coran says worriedly. He glances to Lance; who appears to be sleeping inside of the crystal. His eyes are shut peacefully. 

_At least he doesn’t seem to be in pain,_ Keith thinks. _Unless he’s already dead._

Keith didn’t care to dwell on that idea.

Pidge helps Coran run diagnostics, and Keith feels useless because he has no idea what they’re doing. He looks to Hunk and notices he has the same look of helplessness on his face. Hunk had his arms crossed, and his fingers were tapping. 

Keith knows very little about the science and information needed to help Lance. He can’t help Shiro anymore, now that he’s in the pod. 

Hunk and Keith silently agree to leave the room and talk to each other outside. Hunk still seemed jittery and uneasy.

They fall in the same step of one another and walk around aimlessly as they talk.

Keith expresses his frustrations, “I wish I could help them.”

Hunk nods, “Same. I think we can best help them right now by leaving them to it, and being nearby if they decide they need anything. The good news is, we know Shiro’s going to be alright, now that he’s in a pod. He should wake up by dinner, I think. Lance, well, it’s Lance, he’ll bounce back.”

Keith still can’t help but feel restless. 

Hunk sees this, and feels the same way, “Do you want to help me make something for all of us to eat?”

Keith looks at Hunk, he needs something to distract him; which is why he finds himself saying, “Sure.”

They direct their paths to the kitchen, and purposely pass the green food goo dispenser. It isn’t the best thing around, after all; and with Hunk present, Keith knows something good is coming. 

“You know I made cookies this morning, if you want any,” Hunk says as he presses buttons on the food dispensing device. 

“Thanks, Hunk,” Keith watches Hunk as he grabs the items the dispensing device gave him. Some of the items resemble things he recognizes from Earth; like the orange looking fruit. But the color was a dull blue, however, it still had the small dimples in the rind. 

“How do you know what this stuff is?” Keith asks incredulously while Hunk places the items on a counter. He sees Hunk press more buttons on the device, all of them in _Altean_ mind you.

Hunk pulls out a piece of paper, and looks at it. Without looking at Keith, he says, “It’s mostly a game of taste testing. Sometimes Allura will translate for me; and sometimes Pidge will try to point out fruits and stuff because she’s trying to learn Altean on her own time,” He looks to Keith and waves the paper in front of him, “I try to take notes as well, just so I can come back to an item I’ve used in the past if I need it.”

“That’s...” _brilliant,_ he wanted to say. He settled on, “Really cool.”

Hunk smiles brightly, “Thanks, dude. It wasn’t easy in the beginning. Some of the foods looked like other foods, but tasted way different; like, I ate a green peach, but it tasted like sauerkraut? I felt _betrayed_.”

Keith laughed at his friend’s choices. 

“Anyway,” Hunk says, “I think I’m going to make pasta tonight. Something simple and easy, you know?” He pauses, looking at all the ingredients on the counter, “Can you grab the saucepan looking thing in the cupboard over there?”

Keith nods, and walks to where Hunk was pointing. The cupboard is on the ground, underneath the food dispensing machine. He opens the white plastic-feeling doors and sees similar white round pans. They all had holes in the bottom that were seemingly welded together by random scrap. It seemed to be done messily, but did appear to keep everything together and not leaking. It didn’t, however, seem to be true to the Altean style.

“What’s going on with these weird pans?” Keith asked Hunk.

Hunk’s eyes lit up with joy and he laughed, “Oh yeah, so, funny story about Altean kitchenware; everything has holes in it! Their versions of stoves have a stirring mechanism hooked up from the stove, and basically, you put the pan on top of it, to fill the hole-kinda like screwing a nail into something- and it stirs and cooks the food for you! It was really cool, but I didn’t know how to use it. I tried to ask Allura about it, and even Coran; but they said they didn’t know how to use it, because the cook who used to live on the ship with them, died, you know, _ten thousand years ago._ It was really sad, and so I couldn’t really get rid of the stuff, so I put it into storage, and built my own stove. So-”

Keith continued for him, “So you had to fix the holes in the pans, so _you_ could use them.”

“Yeah! I used some scrap metal I found from other things we weren’t using, and welded them to close up the holes. I even welded it myself; did you know those pans _are_ actually made of metal? Or at least, something similar to metal? Man, I half expected the weld to not arc on the pan, because it sure doesn’t feel like metal.”

Hunk looks at Keith’s blank face, “Sorry, I ramble a lot when I’m nervous.”

Keith snaps out of his trance, and waves his arms out, “No, no! It’s fine, I just, had no idea that you’ve done all that stuff. It’s really cool,” he smacks himself for saying the same thing twice in one conversation, “Sorry... I do really think it is fascinating though; I barely have a clue how to read Altean, and I didn’t have any idea about the stoves.”

Hunk gives him a lopsided smile that reminds Keith of Lance, but with more sincerity, and less mischief, “Thank you, Keith.”

Keith dips his head, then lightly smiles. 

“No problem.”

Keith continues to help Hunk with little tasks as he’s cooking something that resembles pasta. He rolls out some forest green colored dough, and cuts it into noodle shapes.

Keith has never seen noodles made before, much less from scratch. The closest thing to cooking noodles he’s ever dealt with was instant noodles. 

Needless to say, he was awed by Hunk’s abilities. Hunk somehow was making the sauce at the same time as the noodles, and Keith understood none of the cooking chemistry Hunk was explaining to him. He was gesturing wildly about how certain alien foods combine to make flavor combinations, but the science was lost on Keith. 

He still made himself useful by cleaning up the dirty dishes while Hunk made plates for everyone. Keith watches while he finishes rinsing off the last dish, as Hunk hesitated to make the seventh plate for Lance. Keith couldn’t quite read Hunk’s expression, but it was too dark of one; Keith didn’t want to see Hunk be like that anymore. He was looking at the empty plate with scrunched brows.

“He’ll appreciate the plate when he wakes up,” Keith says confidently, but reassuringly. 

Hunk nods, looking up at Keith with tears brimming his eyes. Keith shifted on his feet, putting down the washcloth, and walking the short distance to Hunk. 

“He’ll be okay, right?” Hunk’s voice cracks, “We have no idea what’s happening to him, no idea if he’s alright-”

…

Coran and Pidge were alone with Lance and assessing his vitals through the crystal. 

Coran looked over at Allura, and then at Shiro, unconscious in the pod. 

Allura was sitting up against the healing pod that Shiro was in; appearing to be dozed off. Her face was still contorted with worry as she lay there. Her dress was splayed out around her, the lovely light blue and pink folds overlapping in many places. Her hair was a beautiful mess that framed her delicate features. 

_She cares so much about him,_ he thinks, _Well, she cares so much about all of our paladins._

_But especially him._

“Hey Coran?” Pidge asks cautiously, directing his attention towards them. Pidge was looking at the crystal with a worried look, and Coran saw what they were seeing. 

The crystal appeared to be emitting a blue tinted fog; it surrounded the crystal and some of it dispersed on the ground. 

“That just started happening,” Pidge stands up from their chair and takes a step closer to the weird crystal. 

“Be careful, Pidge,” Coran warns, “We don’t know if the gas is toxic.”

More fog gas is released from the crystal; and it almost looks like the crystal itself was changing too.

“Coran,” Pidge starts, “If the crystal was giving off toxic gas, then shouldn’t Lance be in trouble? His vitals are fine, according to your tech,” they gestures to the Altean tablet on the desk only Coran and Allura could read fluently. Pidge got the basic idea; green was good, red was bad; and Lance had been shifting to the green side gradually. 

Pidge reached out and touched the crystal through the thickening fog, and felt a tingling sensation when the fog brushed their arm. They shrugged it off as nerves. The crystal beneath their fingers felt like a plastic, but it looked smooth and glossy, like glass. 

Brows furrowed, Pidge clenched their fist and tried to break open the material changing crystal. Lance’s eyes popped open, then, and darted around at his encasement. Pidge watched his breath increase quickly, hyperventilating, and reach out to the blue material trapping him. They swipe the fog away from their vision and try to get a good look at Lance. Pidge could see Lance’s lips moving, but they couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Lance,” Pidge says to him, instinctively, despite knowing he probably cannot hear them, “Hold on, I’m trying to help you!”  
Coran tries to say something to Pidge, but they were barely listening; too focused on Lance.

Pidge has to back away as not to be crushed when Lance abruptly turns his body; the weight shift making him fall over in the crystal onto the floor. The material shatters like glass, but as soon as it _does_ shatter, the crystal material evaporates into the fog; and the pieces get smaller and smaller until all that’s left of them is the glass. Lance collapses to his knees, taking deep breaths. Little bits of the shattered crystal were on Lance’s body; like his shoulders and in his hair, and they made it look like smoke was coming off of his body. 

“Lance,” Allura was suddenly awake and behind Pidge, “Are you alright?”

He takes a deep breath before looking up at Allura with a very obviously forced smirk. He lifts his hands up into two finger guns and shakes them at her, “Doin’ great, beautiful.”

Pidge snatches his hand in their own, surprising all of them. Lance let out a squawk of surprise. Pidge ignores him and examine his fingertips, which are now covered in a dark blue, almost navy looking polish. Pidge knew Lance to paint his nails occasionally, but also knew he hadn’t done so since being on Earth. 

Upon closer inspection, though, Pidge noticed the blue color was not shiny like polish is, and was not as opaque as polish is. These were his real nails, but blue. It would be _too much_ of a coincidence to say _all_ of his nails were bruised; so Pidge made the assumption that the crystal has done something to him. 

“Do you see this?” Pidge forcefully showed Allura and Coran his fingertips, “I think it’s a side effect from th-”

Lance interrupts them; not concerned about his nail status at the moment. He takes his hand back from Pidge. 

“Is that Shiro? What happened?” He seemed to be trying to piece all the information together; his eyebrows knitted in thought.

“He’s going to be alright, Lance,” Allura assures. 

“Lance,” Coran asks delicately, “What’s the last thing you remember? Start as far back as you need to.”

He pauses before talking, “We were on that planet with the weird perception based aliens, and the crystal was dying. Some Galra came and fought us, and I think he knocked me out, um, I woke up leaning against the crystal- thank you whoever put me there, because I don’t think I’d be alive if the crystal didn’t- well- uh-,” he stumbled, and saw out of the corner of his eye, Keith and Hunk entering the room. Both pairs of eyes widened upon seeing Lance.

“Lance, buddy!” Hunk drops to his knees and hugs Lance, “Good to have you back. Stop worrying us and waking up in pods, dude. Also what’s with this fog?”

Lance looks around, as if seeing it for the first time.

“It came from the crystal,” Pidge says, “Go on, Lance, what-”

A _shnk_ noise brings all six’s gazes behind them to the healing pod Shiro was in. The protective barrier lowered, and Shiro made a groan as he took a step outwards. Shiro’s step is weak, and his knees tremble; Hunk and Coran are there before anyone else to support him by his arms. 

“Alright, here we go,” Coran helps Shiro take more steps forward and regain his bearings. He knows how it feels to come out of a healing pod and be all discombobulated. 

“Awesome,” Hunk says, “Oh man, is this good timing or what?”

Everyone turns their eyes to Hunk, even Shiro, whose eyes are half-lidded from pod-coma-time. 

“What do you mean, Hunk?” Allura asks curiously.

“Well,” he starts, “Keith and I were coming in to tell you we had dinner ready, for whenever anyone could spare a sec, but since the gang’s all together, what better time to eat!”

“Amen to that,” Lance says, getting to his feet. Keith kept a watchful eye out, to make sure he’ll be there if Lance needed help; he just woke up out of a weird situation as well. Keith couldn’t put his finger on it yet, but Lance looked off. Different even. He saw his nails were blue, and received a short theory from Pidge at the dinner table when he asked about it. 

Lance seemed almost uncomfortable with Keith staring at him, but all he was trying to do was see what was different. It wasn’t his mannerisms; Lance was still a cocky, flirty, funny bastard.

But it bothered Keith, and he didn’t want to bring Lance up again at the table; for fear of making Lance feel less at ease.

He could figure it out later after all.


	4. small spaces and blue named sentients

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the late ass chapter, and the fact that its shorter than the others. i've been feeling like shit lately. see you next time :)

Lance can’t feel his body, and the weight of his eyelids prohibit him from opening. He can’t feel anything, for that matter, except that his weight is shifting around, and he can feel someone manipulating how he moves around in whatever he was inside of; as if someone was holding him, but not really holding _him_. It’s mind boggling. 

He tried to move his fingers. Annoyance quickly was replaced by _fear,_ and Lance tried more frantically to move _any_ part of him that he could. He could feel his lion, Blue, in the back of his head, trying to send calming thoughts to him. She was worried about Lance, this much she expressed with him, but she told him he would be fine, and to try and calm down, because his friends _are_ with him, even though he can’t tell. He was so glad at least someone could talk to him; he was thankful for Blue because she was picking up on how he was feeling at the moment. He was so lost, and had no idea what was happening around him.

_What’s going on, Blue?_ he tried to ask her. 

Wordlessly, she informed him how she did not _quite_ know, but she did tell him that some outside force was protecting him, and that she could feel the presence of _that other thing_ protecting him.

_Who is it?_ Lance asks, trying to keep his mind off of the lack of feeling in his body by talking to Blue. 

Blue tells him it isn’t a person protecting him, or well, the presence she feels isn’t the one protecting him. She tells him Keith and the others are inside of the green lion(with him); keeping him safe, and trying to get back to the castle. The _extra presence_ Blue was speaking of, isn’t Altean or even _human_. 

_Is it one of the aliens from that planet we were at?_

Blue explains that it came from there, but wasn’t the aliens themselves. It was a _thing_ protecting him, or maybe a sentient being, similar to how the lions are. Blue told Lance that she couldn’t communicate with the new being, though. 

Lance tries to remember what last happened to him before waking up like this. He vaguely recalls fighting someone. 

Someone with white hair. Was it Allura?

_No, it couldn’t be. It was…._

Lance struggled to think back. 

_Purple skin…_

_Galra?_

Lance _swore_ it was a special Galra though….

If Lance could gasp, he certainly would’ve just then, but since he couldn’t physically move, the gasp was silent and internal.

_The Prince!_ That’s what Allura called him, anyway. Lance remembers the fight: the prince hurting Shiro badly, and Keith getting hurt too. He remembers the Prince picking a fight with him, and being a creepy bastard in general. 

Lance feels the ghost of a smooth Galran hand on his cheek, soft white hair tickling his neck. 

He shivers at the memory. 

At the time, it didn’t bother him; Lance was too busy trying _not to die_ , so he didn’t pay much attention to the creepy actions of the Prince. 

Now that he’s alone, though, without anything _better_ to occupy his mind, these thoughts run rampant. 

If his body could shake with panic, it would. His throat felt like it was closing up. 

Lance’s mind wandered to the things the Prince could’ve done to him, and he felt his mind going hysterical. An awful feeling settled in his stomach that he couldn’t get rid of. 

He wished for something on the outside to move, or make a sound. He wished for anything to take his mind off of the unreasonable panic he was going through. 

Lance begged for Blue to talk to him, but her messages were now unclear, incomprehensible. Lance tried to move, to open his eyes, to do _anything_ ; but he couldn’t.

Lance would give anything so he could die in that moment. He wanted to put an _end_ to the way he was feeling. He _tried_ to deal with the immobility, but it scared him so much, especially when there was nothing else for him to occupy his mind. Not being able to move while his mind was panicking about immobility was terrifying.

He becomes mad at himself now. Mad that he can’t do anything. Mad that he’s given into fear so easily. Mad that he doesn’t know a way out. 

He thinks about his brief talk with Blue just moments ago. She said _she_ wasn’t able to communicate with them…. But what if Lance could?

He wasn’t sure how to initiate conversation with the new “being” in his mind. All he knew was they were there, in his mind.

Lance takes a few moments to collect his thoughts, and calm down from his recent inner-meltdown. 

 

_Hello?_ he pauses, _Anyone else here? It would be super cool if you could talk to me right now._

Lance isn’t sure how long he waited, but he _does_ in fact get a response. 

Similar to the Blue, this new being doesn’t speak in words or sentences, at least, not at first. Lance isn’t sure what’s happening, but if feels like the new being is trying to invade a part of his mind. 

There’s a new pressure in his head, and he feels lots of memories and images pop into his head. 

He thinks he sees his mom waving hello, he hears someone saying “greetings”, he remembers himself walking up to a girl and using a pickup line to talk to her. All of these images are forced to the front of his mind at the same time, not by him.

The other being is summoning these memories. 

_What is this?_ he asks the being, wary of what new images or phrases will be used in response to his question.

A memory of the cropped brown haired leader came to the surface of his mind. 

_“We appear as whatever you are most comfortable with seeing. You perceive us as something familiar to you.”_

Lance tries to put this memory into context. 

_So, is this your way of communicating with me? By using my past memories?_

The thoughts and memories are coming up more smoothly in Lance mind now, as if the other being was learning how to speak, and getting better and better by the second.

The being talks to him with formulated sentences now, _You are correct, that is how I communicate when I first try to learn a new alien’s language from their own mind. Usually it is a longer process; but your species communicates primarily verbally. Getting used to what you call “humor” though, took a moment._

Lance processes this. Is there not much humor in other alien species? He couldn’t imagine his life without laughter; it helps him through the bad times, helps cover up insecurities. Humor is essential!

_Your friends are trying to get you out of here_ the presence tells Lance. _I need you to agree to my proposal, before I let you out of this stasis._

At this point, Lance is okay with agreeing to anything, as long as it gets him out of, well, _whatever_ he’s in.

_What do you need from me?_ Lance asks the being in his mind.

The being seems to hesitate before continuing. 

_I need… A place to reside in your mind. I swear to not bother you, in fact, I’ll even “pay my rent” as you might call it._

Lance is confused by the being’s idea, _What do you mean, “pay your rent”?_

He can feel the being preparing something to say, as if he were picking his words carefully(you know, from Lance’s mind).

_Right now, because of all of the power drains that the Galra performed on my crystalized form, I have no more energy to keep myself alive. I’ve hit the point where I can no longer regenerate without a symbiotic relationship with a host._

_What kinda crazy science crow crap are you spewing at me?_ Lance jabs. In all honestly, he remembers his 8th grade science class telling him about parasitism, mutualism, etc. but he wanted more explanation. Besides, the being still hasn’t told him what “paying rent” entails. 

The being continues, _Think of how a tree needs soil to live; because it needs the nutrients from the soil to support itself. In return, the tree protects the soil by making it less inclined to erode and fall apart, because the roots help keep it together._

Lance takes this in, _You’re gonna keep me from dying because you need me to live so that_ you _can live?_

_Yes,_ the voice tells him, _My crystallized physical form is a raw state of power that I can be; but I can also manifest into different forms as well. I can shapeshift into a being, or present myself as a consumable resource. At the moment, I do not have enough energy to manifest myself in any other form than as an accessory of your body, and the voice that you’re hearing me by. The first physical manifestation of me that you’re going to notice is in the keratin in your nails._

_In your memories, I’ve seen that your appearance matters deeply to you. You take pride in your hair because it is same color as your mother’s; so I’ve decided to not cause an effect on those keratin cells. However, you have coated your nails with paint in the past; I’ve figured this would be a prime place to give you a physical display of my lifeforce._

Lance was oddly touched by this. He was surprised that a parasitic being was caring for his feelings, even if those feelings were as superficial as hair and nails. 

_Thank you,_ he directs his thoughts at the being. _But you still haven’t explained the “paying rent” bit, yet?_

If the being could roll his eyes, Lance bets that they would’ve, in that moment. 

_Two things, Lance: One, I’m getting there, I figured you would just like to have some background on what’s going to be happening to you for the foreseeable future. Two; stop calling me “the being” in your head. It’s annoying and makes me feel alienated -which I am an alien to you, obviously- but we might as well try to find some common ground between us, despite me not being human. Give me a name, anything you wish, it doesn’t matter to me._

Lance takes this moment to notice the lack of uncomfortable-ness that he feels anymore about being locked inside of wherever he was right now, but pushes past it to think of a name. He thinks of his dog’s name at home; he thinks of all of his siblings and family members at home he could name the being after. 

None of those names would fit, though. 

_What color nails will I have that represent you?_

The being is quick to try and shut this idea down, _A dark blue- but don’t even-_

Lance interjects the mind conversation, _Would you call it a NAVY blue?_

_When I said that any name would be okay, I wasn’t expecting you to name me after a color, like your sentient lion._ The being, newly named: Navy, sasses Lance. _That’s unoriginal and tacky_

Lance feels his boisterous personality coming back to him, _Nope! Too late! It’s been decided! Now tell me about this “rent”, already!_

If Navy was capable of sighing in exasperation, they would’ve. 

_Given my state of power, or lack thereof, I will only be able to heal you of minor injuries. Soon mortal injuries, and after that, if we get there, we will have that conversation when we cross that bridge. Now do you agree to letting me reside in your body with you? I did save your life from the blast, after all._

Lance wasn’t planning on refusing, no matter how weird the situation was; because, you know, healing powers; but he was still curious:

_What if I said no?_

There was a pause. 

Lance could feel Navy thinking, _I would have to force a separation with your body, and that might kill you, because I’m feeding off of your life force so heavily at the moment. You wouldn’t have any life left by the time the separation was over; so I would continue living -slightly stronger than before, but nowhere near as strong as I could be- and you would die._

Lance was disturbed by this. The lack of really having a choice hits him, and suddenly he is less inclined to say yes, even though he knows he will, anyway.

_Well, when you put it that way… You know I’m saying yes._

_Figured as much, but consent is always important as well._

A tingling feeling starts at Lance’s fingertips and toes and progressively moves to the rest of his body. It comes in a slow wave, but the feeling in those parts that the tingling leaves, comes back. Lance comforts himself by moving his fingers, then hands around; but becomes perturbed by the small space he feels himself in. 

Lance feels like he’s suffocating in a coffin when he opens his eyes.

Lance sees a short figure with brown scrappy hair and a taller figure with orange ginger hair in front of him. He tries to scream for Pidge and Coran. There’s a weird fog in front of him, but he tries to get Pidge’s help, but they can’t do anything to break the crystal encasement. Lance’s heart rate skyrockets. He feels like he can’t breathe.

_You’re not suffocating! I know you can breathe in here, I’ve made it so that isn’t an issue for you! Please! Calm down!_ Navy yells in his mind, but its background noise, static he can’t pay attention to, because his mind is screaming “Get out. Get out! GET OUT!” 

But Lance _can’t_ get out. He hits his fists on the slightly transparent blue encasement, but nothing happens. His balled fists just bounce off like when hitting the laminated glass of a car window. 

It angers Lance that they can’t hear him. It also scares Lance that they can’t hear him.

_Lance, stop, I’m breaking down my crystal structure so I can fully reside in your body, rather than just absorb energy through this crystal form… I’m trying to free you, so hold on! I’m quickening the process so the crystal form can shatter and you can break free, instead of slowly evaporating._

Any other time, Lance would thank someone for being considerate like Navy is being. Unfortunately, the words being told to Lance are just going in one ear and out the other, metaphorically of course, since all of their conversation _has_ been in his head.

Lance turns his body after gaining full feeling of his body. The weight displacement makes him fall over in the crystal coffin, though, and Lance hates the way falling without being able to catch yourself feels. He tries to brace; and when he _does_ hit the ground, he feels freer, because the crystal shatters around him, and more smokey fog appears from the broken crystal fragments. Lance is on his knees, hugging himself, and forgetting about those around him as he tries to calm himself down.

Allura is suddenly behind him, “Lance, are you alright?”

He summons all of his normal attitude and bravado in that moment and brings a smirk onto his face. He brings his hands up into little finger guns at Allura.

“Doin’ great,” He smiles more, “Beautiful.”

Pidge snatches his hands into their own to look at his nails, “Do you see this?” Pidge forcefully showed Allura and Coran his fingertips, “I think it’s a side effect from th-”

Lance interrupts them; not concerned about his nail status at the moment. He takes his hand back from Pidge.

“Is that Shiro? What happened?” He was trying to remember what happened to him in the fight. It was still blurry in his mind.  
Allura looks to Lance, “He’s going to be alright, Lance.”

Lance could tell she was saying that to help convince herself of that fact. 

Coran diverges from Shiro and tries to ask Lance what he last remembered happening. He had to think for a moment before starting back when they got to the planet they landed on. He remembered the Galran Prince, grudgingly, and then the explosion blast. He stopped talking when Keith and Hunk entered the room. He saw their eyes widen, and Hunk ran to Lance, dropping to his knees to hug him and yell at him for waking up in “pods”. He questioned the fog, as well, which Lance discovered he didn’t have the energy to explain.

_Rest, Lance,_ Navy suggests. Lance likes this idea, because exhaustion takes over, and he’s just ready to eat something and sleep for a while. He decided he would tell everyone about what was going on with Navy tomorrow. 

The sound of a healing pod door lowering brought Lance’s attention back to life. He saw Shiro emerging from the pod, and had a sense of empathy for him in that moment; because he knows that groggy feeling that Shiro has right now.

Hunk left Lance’s side to assist Shiro, and mentions how this was fantastic timing, since he had finished cooking dinner with…. Keith? 

Keith? Helping cook? 

An interesting feat, but Lance pushes it off to tease Keith about it until a later date. For now, he was tired and hungry, and he might as well get rid of one feeling along with his friends. Lance threw out a comment and tried to be lively as he could manage, but honestly he just wanted some shut eye.

During the pasta dinner, though, Keith kept making glances at Lance, which bothered him. He later went back to his room and threw off his extra clothes, and jumped into his bed. Lance put one of his hands into the air above his head to look at his dark blue nails. 

He thought to himself, _At least it’s a pretty color,_ before earning some much needed sleep.


End file.
